G'day, From: "Rich Puhek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [...] > One little quibble/question about this: should issues like this be > reported to the Debian maintainer, or just reported to whoever created > the software in the first place? [...] > If a package's functionality has issues, shouldn't you bring it up to > whoever works on the upstream program itself? They're the ones who have > to fix it, since they're the ones who wrote it. > > Granted, the developer can forward the bug to upstream, but it seems to > me that it would be easier to just notify the upstream right away, and > not bug you guys with something you can't control.
In theory, this is true. However, there are many reasons why reporting the bug through the Debian bug tracking system is a good idea, including; 1) it prevents buggy software from automatically transitioning into "testing". 2) it alerts the package mantainer to the problem. 3) It alerts people trying to put together a Debian release that there is yet another release-critical bug to be solved first. 4) it provides a common reference point for debian users wondering why the package doesn't work. 5) Often the debian bug-tracking system is better than what upstream has available... many non-debian projects end up refering to bugs in the Debian tracker because they don't have a tracker of their own. 6) Often the Debian package mantainer is more responsive than upstream, developing and applying their own patches which eventually get accepted upstream. I always report against the Debian package first, then forward upstream as necisary. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Donovan Baarda http://minkirri.apana.org.au/~abo/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
